Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/555

FIRST BRIDGES. 451 This method, not system, of highway building and repair was modified by the town in voting a specific portion of the total town tax for highways and dividing the money among the district surveyors, thereby enabling them to hire such labor and at such prices as they saw fit. Later a wiser plan was adopted, which is now in operation, the appointment of a town surveyor, who has a fixed salary and who has the charge of all the town roads, adopting modern methods of road building and thereby securing for the town an excellent reputation for its public highways. For the last twenty years the town has been fortunate in having a large supply of oyster shells for covering the roads, and has been more fortunate in having good men to superintend the expendi- ture of the money. Recently the state has made a sample half mile of road near the Town Hall, and the interest now awakened in scientific road building will lead to much greater improvements in this department in the future. Ancient Swansea was intersected by five navigable rivers. Lees, Coles, Kickemuit, Palmers or Warren, and Barring- ton. All of these rivers were fordable in the north part of the town and were so crossed until the people were able to construct roads and use carriages, when bridges were needed for crossing. Probably the first bridge built was over Bowen's River, the name formerly given to the upper part of Barrington River. This river is sometimes called in the early records Bowen's Bridge River or Runen's River, and the rude bridge over it made the communication easier between Mr. Brown and Captain Willett at Wannamoisett and Mr. Myles and his settlement on New Meadow Neck at the head of Hundred Acre Cove. The second bridge was built near the fording place over Palmer's River, at the pres- ent Village of Barneysville and was called Myles' Bridge, from the pastor of the Swansea Church, Rev. John Myles, who was probably the leader in its construction. As Barrington consists of two peninsulas, separated from each other and from Warren by navigable streams, the earli- est mode of communication between the settlers was by the